Eugene Von Guerard
Lured to Australia during the great gold rushes of the early 1850s, Eugene von Guérard stayed on in Melbourne to become one of the most important artists of the late colonial period. Appointed as the first head of the National Gallery of Victoria, he was also in charge of the Gallery's art school. His position as the leading landscape painter of his time was challenged only by the later arrival of Louis Buvelot. He travelled extensively in Victoria and into South Australia and New South Wales, making detailed drawings in his sketchbooks. These he translated, in the studio, into paintings of the Aboriginal peoples, homesteads, and panoramic landscapes of the Sublime in nature, evoking the beauty and mystery of a primeval landscape. The discovery, during more recent years, of a number of von Guérard's paintings from his important Düsseldorf years has thrown light on his studies of nature and the development of his art before coming to Australia.
'Von Guérard's practice of using a sketchbook on his travels began in the 1830s and it continued until the last year of his life. The earliest extant sketchbook was, as his methodical numbering of the books reveals, his third and it dates from 1834 when he and his artist-father Bernard von Guérard were living in Naples. In March of that year they travelled around Sicily together, each recording the journey in their respective sketchbooks and on some occasions sitting side by side to sketch the same subject. In an inscription on the inside back cover von Guérard noted with evident relief that this book was back in his possession after having been lost on the road between Palermo and Alcamo. After the near loss of this one precious book, von Guérard managed to keep his lifetime's production of forty-seven sketchbooks until his death. The sketchbooks had deep personal significance for him as visual – and written – diaries of the travels that defined his career. They were the foundation of his professional practice, a repository of observations, studies and compositional drawings made on expeditions for use in the studio.'1 Following Bernhard's death in 1836, Eugene relocated to Dusseldorf where his late father was born and trained as an artist. Here, he enrolled in the Kunstakademie under the tutelage of Johan Wilhelm Schirmer where he studied between 1839-1845, continuing to refer to his earlier sketch books when honing his craft.
The present work, although not signed, is an intriguing insight into von Guerards methodology and process and shares distinct similarities to other paintings referring to his Italian days especially some views of the coasts of the South of Italy and Sicily which he visited with his father in 1834 (see pictures).
In all the paintings here presented the palm trees are chosen as a curtain to the view and are painted in the same idealized albeit realistic way. A suggestion of exoticism of a still unspoiled frontier between the western world and the Mediterranean.